"Gaspare!" said the doctor. "Where is the padrona?"

The boy sobbed and sobbed, always in the same dry and terribly mechanical

way.

"Gaspare!" repeated the doctor, touching him. "Gaspare!"

"E' morto!" the boy suddenly cried out, in a loud voice.

And he flung himself down on the ground.

The doctor felt a thrill of cold in his veins. He went up the steps into

the little sitting-room. As he did so Hermione came to the door of the

bedroom. Her dripping skirts clung about her. She looked quite calm.

Without greeting the doctor she said, quietly: "You heard what Gaspare said?"

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"Si, signora, ma--"

The doctor stopped, staring at her. He began to feel almost dazed. The

fishermen had followed him and stood crowding together on the steps and

staring into the room.

"He is dead. I am sorry you came all this way."

They stood there facing one another. From the kitchen came the sound of

Lucrezia's cries. Hermione put her hands up to her ears.

"Please--please--oh, there should be a little silence here now!" she

said.

For the first time there was a sound of something like despair in her

voice.

"Let me come in, signora!" stammered the doctor. "Let me come in and

examine him."

"He is dead."

"Well, but let me. I must!"

"Please come in," she said.

The doctor turned round to the fishermen.

"Go, one of you, and make that girl keep quiet," he said, angrily. "Take

her away out of the house--directly! Do you hear? And the rest of you

stay outside, and don't make a sound."

The fishermen slunk a little way back into the darkness, while Giuseppe,

walking on the toes of his bare feet, and glancing nervously at the

furniture and the pictures upon the walls, crossed the room and

disappeared into the kitchen. Then the doctor laid down his cigar on a

table and went into the bedroom whither Hermione had preceded him.

There was a lighted candle on the white chest of drawers. The window and

the shutters of the room were closed against the glances of the

fishermen. On one of the two beds--Hermione's--lay the body of a man

dripping with water. The doctor took the candle in his hand, went to this

bed and leaned down, then set down the candle at the bedhead and made a

brief examination. He found at once that Gaspare had spoken the truth.

This man had been dead for some time. Nevertheless, something--he

scarcely knew what--kept the doctor there by the bed for some moments

before he pronounced his verdict. Never before had he felt so great a

reluctance to speak the simple words that would convey a great truth. He

fingered his shirt-front uneasily, and stared at the body on the bed and

at the wet sheets and pillows. Meanwhile, Hermione had sat down on a

chair near the door that opened into what had been Maurice's

dressing-room, and folded her hands in her lap. The doctor did not look

towards her, but he felt her presence painfully. Lucrezia's cries had

died away, and there was complete silence for a brief space of time.




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